4
It went on this way, me coming to their house for secret dinners once a week, upon Lou's request. It turned out that their food was a lot better than the shit they fed the other boys. Plus I got to be in an air-conditioned home for thirty minutes a week.
I remember the very first hole I dug, and the day that I dug it, too. It was a Sunday. My mother would be in church. Oh, God, I can imagine her entering the church, and Pastor Simmons starting his sermon;
"We all are led astray by evil, evil people in our community every once in a while. Take Susan Sevillo's family, for example. Look at her shameless son and you will see what the signs! The signs of pure EVILL!" And the crowd will cheer an "Amen" as my mother will shrivel in her pew.
I stabbed my shovel angrily into the dirt again and again, making bits of it fly all over the pace.
A shadow appeared from behind me. It was the tall one... Rick, Nigel, or something like that.
"You miss your mother, don't you?"
I said nothing, and continued digging silently.
He hawked, and spat at the crusty ground. Putting his hands on his hips and looking up into the sky he said, "Yuup, yup. I miss her, too. Don't miss her boyfriend, though."
He then looked down at me, "You got a girl, back home, kid?"
I stopped digging, and squinted into the sun.
"Do I look like I've got a girlfriend, Nigel?"
"It's Nick," he said without the slightest hint of irritation. "Well I've got a girl back home. I left the place three months ago, so she prob'ly got some other nice guy who can keep out of trouble. We had plans, too. We were gonna get married, have a son..." he nodded to some invisible stranger in front of him.
"We was gonna name him Alan." He smiled, took out a toothpick from his pocket and put it into his mouth. "He was gonna be our angel son. Who kept outta trouble and ate his veggies..."
"Then what happened?" I asked him.
"I got in trouble," he smiled crookedly. "Got caught drunk and speed-driving on the highway in my moma's boyfriend's car."
He asked me what I did to get into this Greenlake mess.
I simply told him an old man with a stupid chocolate Santa had framed me. He laughed, said I was funny, and left.
It took me twelve hours that day to dig that damn hole.
When I finished, I had to walk alone back to camp.
Now those ungrateful little maggots in Camp Greenlake today never knew how good they had it. They had a pool table, and working bathrooms.
Those days, each tent had an outhouse. That was it.
There was no rec-room.
We had a pack of cards… but really, that was it.
I remember how worn they were. I remember they had pictures of some naked woman at the back... Venus, or someone like that. Besides Lou and that crazy old woman, Venus was the only female within two hundred miles. The best-lookin' one I might add.
"Come play, little man," Numba One said, when he saw me enter the tent, exhausted.
They were gathered together on one of the cots and playing that idiotic game of poker.
"I don't know how to play." I said, tiredly.
"We'll teach yer. Come on!"
I grumbled, but found a place to sit.
There was really nothing to gamble. There was deodorant, and getting others to dig holes for them, and a dead beetle that Marcus claimed to have spoken to him and told him about his future.
I was able to win once. I won the dead beetle.
I stared at it, pinching its dry body between my thumb and finger. I looked into its eyes that were out of focus and gray, and wondered if its soul was still in there.
I put the beetle under my pillow. Until this day, I really don't know why I had kept it.
"You can hear it, can't you?" Marcus asked, peering at me with his large, black eyes. "It told me I was gonna be rich some day. That I'd be swimming in money!" He laughed, and laid back in his cot, hands behind his head.
"Don't look so disappointed, kid. In my opinion, you got the best prize of them all." With one chuckle, he fell asleep.
----------
I was startled by something wriggling under my pillow.
"HII!"
A strange, black bug had jumped three feet into the air and landed on my nose.
I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth.
Who are you? I demanded.
"I'm Wilson, the magic beetle. I have come to tell you about your future."
My eyes widened, and I looked at Marcus, who was fast asleep.
Why?
"Because you're special and because the world is a wonderful plaace! Whee!" Wilson giggled cheerily and jumped up and down on my face.
"Do you wish to know your future?"
Yes, Wilson, tell me.
"You are going to lead a lonely and sad life. People will hate you, and you will die in a jail cell."
I thought-laughed... since my voice box wasn't working.
Silly bug. God can't be that cruel.
Wilson giggled. "Silly human. Who said it was God who is watching you?"
Suddenly a whoosh of fire burst from under the cot. Flames licked at the blankets, and my pillow, and my hair.
"Goodbyeeee... wheeee!" Wilson bounced away, leaving me screaming and screaming...
"GIT UP, BOY!"
The thin sheet that sufficed as a blanket was pulled from me, and it was suddenly so cold.
"GIT UP!"
My eyes were able to open. The old man was standing over me.
"Didn't ye hear the alarm this morning? The other boys are up, and eatin' their breakfast."
He pushed me over the bed, and I landed with a thud. I was too tired to even know that I was lying face-down on the floor.
"Ye have five minutes to git ready and eat breakfast."
I grabbed my pink overalls (which I had been wearing for three days) and ran after the old man, still pulling up my overalls.
"HEEYY!" I cried after the old man.
He stopped, and faced me.
"What d'ya want, boy?"
I frowned.
"A new change of underwear."
The old man formed an "o" shape with his mouth, and then laughed.
"You telling me, ya been wearin' the same underwear for four days?" He slapped his knee, and I was suddenly very, very irritated.
"There's a plastic bag under yer cot. If ye paid attention to anything I said, ye would have known that. It has your 'change of underwear', and two blue jumpers that are washed every week."
"Wow, I feel clean."
He cackled and sent me 'on my way.'
"I WILL NOT BE TREATED LIKE THIS!" I shouted after him, while also still trying to pull up my pants. "I HAVE A SOUL!"
"Not in Camp Greenlake," he called after me, and disappeared into his house.
"Look at me, you buffoon! Where did you put my underwear?" I stood over Marcus, who was sitting on his cot and averting my glare.
"I sold it."
"YOU SOLD MY UNDERWEAR?"
"It's very valuable. It's worth a lot of shower soap and smuggled items."
"But it was my underwear!"
He shrugged and said whilst picking his nose,
"You can get it back. I sold your shit to an A-tenter named Gambit."
I sat on my cot and cried. I suddenly became conscious of something wedged between the cot and my pretty pink bum.
It was Wilson, the dead beetle.
AAAAAAAAAAIIIIII!!
I ran out and hurled Satan's pet as far as I could. It landed on someone.
"What the hell?"
Oopsi.
"Who threw this?!?"
Gambit appeared with Wilson, still intact—that relic of pure evil—between his thumb and forefinger.
Must get rid of beetle… must not get raped by A-Tenter…
Just then a cloud of a wonderful and dastardly plan began to form in my porridge bowl of a brain.
I ran, arms flailing towards him, tears flying from my eyes and corroding anything in their path.
"Oh, my Wilson! My Wilson!"
Gambit saw me and sighed with great and wise sadness.
"Oh, God, it's him."
"Him?" Good Lord! Three days in this pile of manure and I've been nicknamed already!
"Oh my sweet, beautiful Wilson!" I sobbed, taking the beetle, which was now missing three of his legs, from Gambit's shocked hand.
"Oh! That reprehensible, detestable boy took it from my loving care and threw it into the desert! It's a good thing your eye broke its fall!"
At that moment, Marcus walked out of the tent, yawning and naively unaware.
"It was HIM!" I pointed at Marcus with one quivering finger.
Marcus sniffed the air, sensing danger, and ran back inside the tent faster than you could say sour crumpets.
Gambit trudged towards the tent where Marcus hid, pulling up his orange sleeves in a threatening, villain-like way.
"Wait—stop!" I cried.
Gambit revolved his frighteningly thuggish body to face me.
"Don't you want to touch it?"
Gambit's eyes widened, as he backed away.
"Look, man, I don't swing that way..."
"No," I said, "I mean the beetle. Don't you want to touch it?"
"No, that's okay."
"But it will tell you your future!" I said in that tone Barney used to tell the children a wonderful story about speeding rockets and pointless nostalgia.
After pondering over this great decision, he walked over and stroked the dead beetle's head with one finger.
"Oh! OH MY GOD!" I cried, putting my hand over my eyes, trouncing the massive vision of Gambit's brilliant future from my eyes.
"What? What?" insisted Gambit eagerly.
"There's a woman, a beautiful woman! And there's another one! They're standing on either side of you, laughing drinking champagne. You have so many rings on your fingers. By Jeebus, man! You're a pimp!"
Gambit chortled evilly. Other boys who had heard began cheering him on.
"Really? I'm going to be a pimp?"
"My, my, Gambit, you sure have that pimpish, abusive charm, don't you?"
"Yes. Yes, I do."
Then I opened my eyes and smiled calmly at him.
"Tell me more," he said, nodding his head encouragingly.
"I will... aaactually... I'll just give you my awesome dead beetle corpse."
Gambit's face lit up. "Really?"
"Why, yes," I said cheerfully, "In return for two clean changes of underwear... if you have any, of course..."
"Oh, I do, I do!"
He rushed into his tent and brought them out. I greedily rushed over and pried the precious booty from Gambit's hands.
My babies!
I flicked the dead beetle at Gambit, who eagerly held it in his hands in all its glory. Other boys gathered around, some even begging to touch it.
How sad it seems that the older we become, the stupider we all seem to get.
A tear of pity slid down my cheek, and I wiped it away with one regal hand.
I mustn't let these people's stupidity weaken me!
I walked in only to be greeted by Marcus standing, dumbfounded before me.
Looking imperially at him with all my kindness and glory, I nodded.
"You may bow to me, if you wish," I said.
Marcus remained in his unproductive little position and didn't budge.
Just then Nigel—I mean Nick, entered the tent, chewing on another blasted toothpick.
"That was one rad thing you did out there," he said nodding at me, "I didn't think you had the balls, kid."
"I have plenty of balls, thank you." And I stormed off to the showers to change into my prize-winning underwear.